Greater Adelaide had 130,241 actively trading market sector businesses at 30 June 2025. That was 3,999 more than the 2024 count, a derived increase of 3.2%.
This report uses Australian Bureau of Statistics Data by Region for the Greater Adelaide Greater Capital City Statistical Area, code 4GADE. It is not the City of Adelaide local government area or the whole of South Australia.
SEO Guys prepared the report for local organisations, journalists, business owners, researchers and market planners. The figures can frame a useful question, but they do not prove search demand, customer intent, ranking difficulty or SEO opportunity.
Reusable local business dataset
Download the source-labelled Greater Adelaide business data
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Source-backed Greater Adelaide report
Greater Adelaide business structure at a glance
Greater Adelaide had 130,241 actively trading market-sector businesses at 30 June 2025. The count was 3,999 higher than in 2024, a derived increase of 3.2%.
Geography note: Greater Adelaide GCCSA is the functional capital city region defined by the ABS. It is not the City of Adelaide local government area and it is not the whole of South Australia.
Active market sector businesses
130,241
At 30 June 2025
Increase from the 2024 count
+3,999
Derived 3.2% increase
Estimated resident population
1,491,015
At 30 June 2025
Annual population growth
+1.3%
+18,647 people
Evidence limit: Business and population statistics can frame a market question. They do not prove search demand, customer intent, ranking difficulty, marketing budgets or SEO opportunity.
Five-year Greater Adelaide business count
The published count changed from 112,968 in 2021 to 130,241 in 2025, an end-point increase of 17,273 or 15.3%. Historical values may be revised between ABS releases.
| Year | Proportional count bar | Businesses |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 112,968 | |
| 2022 | 118,743 | |
| 2023 | 121,729 | |
| 2024 | 126,242 | |
| 2025 | 130,241 |
Business structure by employment size
Non-employing businesses and businesses with 1 to 4 employees accounted for 115,257 of the Greater Adelaide total, or 88.5%. These bands describe business structure, not workforce size or buying intent.
| Employment size | Businesses | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Non-employing | 88,905 | 68.3% |
| 1 to 4 employees | 26,352 | 20.2% |
| 5 to 19 employees | 11,479 | 8.8% |
| 20 or more employees | 3,505 | 2.7% |
Business structure by annual turnover
The two turnover bands at $200,000 or more contained 54,739 businesses, or 42.0% of the total. Turnover does not reveal profit, marketing budget or channel preference.
| Annual turnover range | Businesses | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Zero to under $50,000 | 31,489 | 24.2% |
| $50,000 to under $200,000 | 44,013 | 33.8% |
| $200,000 to under $2 million | 44,666 | 34.3% |
| $2 million or more | 10,073 | 7.7% |
Largest industries by business count
The five largest published industry divisions accounted for 79,382 businesses, or 61.0% of the total. Each business is assigned one main ANZSIC industry, and these counts do not measure jobs or revenue.
| Industry | 2025 count | Share | Change from 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction | 22,613 | 17.4% | +14.9% |
| Rental, hiring and real estate services | 16,727 | 12.8% | +12.7% |
| Professional, scientific and technical services | 15,258 | 11.7% | +10.4% |
| Transport, postal and warehousing | 12,761 | 9.8% | +35.5% |
| Health care and social assistance | 12,023 | 9.2% | +29.4% |
| Retail trade | 6,902 | 5.3% | +3.1% |
| Administrative and support services | 6,428 | 4.9% | +22.1% |
| Other services | 6,392 | 4.9% | +18.3% |
Reusable source-labelled chart
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The accessible SVG compares the five largest 2025 industry counts on one zero-based scale and keeps the source, geography, licence and evidence warning visible.
Source and attribution
Business tables use Australian Bureau of Statistics Data by Region for Greater Adelaide, GCCSA code 4GADE. Population is from ABS Regional population. SEO Guys selected, checked and explained the figures. The ABS did not produce or endorse this analysis.
Editor and publisher reuse
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source-labelled Greater Adelaide SVG
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What changed in Greater Adelaide's business base
The published count rose from 126,242 in 2024 to 130,241 in 2025. The 3,999-business difference equals a derived increase of 3.2%. It is a comparison of annual snapshots, not a count of entries, exits or surviving firms.
Non-employing businesses and businesses with one to four employees totalled 115,257, or 88.5% of the 2025 count. Employment-size bands describe business structure, not the total workforce, capacity or buying intent of an individual firm.
The two turnover bands below $200,000 contained 75,502 businesses, equal to 58.0% of the total. Turnover is not profit, owner income, marketing budget or evidence that a business will buy SEO services.
Construction added 1,029 businesses between 2024 and 2025, health care and social assistance added 668, and transport, postal and warehousing added 634. Industry count change is not industry revenue, jobs growth or search demand.
Keep population, geography and business counts distinct
Greater Adelaide's estimated resident population reached 1,491,015 at 30 June 2025, up 18,647 people or 1.3% over the year. The current release records natural increase of 3,248, net internal migration of negative 2,425 and net overseas migration of 17,824.
The 2025 population estimate is preliminary and the 2024 estimate was revised. Population change and business-count change come from separate statistical products and do not explain one another by themselves.
Greater Adelaide GCCSA is the ABS functional capital-city region. It is not the City of Adelaide local government area and it is not all of South Australia. Keep code 4GADE visible when quoting or comparing the report.
Add official industry context without changing the dataset
Invest SA identifies defence, critical technologies, health and medical, food and wine, resources, space, tourism and related precincts as current South Australian investment themes. That government context can help a researcher form a question about Adelaide's business mix, but it does not replace the ABS counts or prove demand for a particular supplier.
The Invest SA material remains on its own source terms. It is cited on this HTML report and is not copied into the Creative Commons CSV or SVG.
Use the report to improve an Adelaide market brief
A business association can use the employment table to shape member education. A journalist can use the small-business share as a lead that still needs interviews. A business can use the industry table to identify a market question worth testing.
For SEO planning, combine the statistics with Search Console evidence, customer records, current search results, conversion data and genuine service capacity. A large category can still have weak intent or no realistic ranking path for a particular website.
Methodology, attribution and responsible reuse
The business evidence comes from the ABS Data by Region release updated on 26 May 2026. Population uses the separate ABS Regional population release published on 31 March 2026. Derived values are labelled in the downloadable CSV.
Multi-location businesses are assigned to one geography, published values can be revised or confidentialised, and changes between snapshots do not measure survival, revenue or employment growth.
The normalized CSV and original SVG are offered under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Retain the ABS attribution, SEO Guys credit, source URLs, geography, periods and evidence warnings. Do not imply that the ABS produced or endorsed the analysis.
Sources and further reading
Primary and authoritative sources used to support the factual guidance in this resource.
- Source 01ABS Data by Region Greater Adelaide profile, opens in a new tabOfficial Greater Adelaide profile and download route.
- Source 02ABS Data by Region Greater Adelaide CSV, opens in a new tabBusiness totals, employment size, turnover, industry and population time series.
- Source 03ABS Data by Region methodology 2011 to 2025, opens in a new tabScope, confidentiality, geography, revisions and multi-location business limitations.
- Source 04ABS Regional population 2024 to 2025, opens in a new tabPublished population total, annual change and three components of change.
- Source 05ABS Regional population methodology 2024 to 2025, opens in a new tabPopulation estimation methods, preliminary status and revision information.
- Source 06ABS Greater Capital City Statistical Areas Edition 3, opens in a new tabDefinition of the functional capital city geography used by the current Data by Region release.
- Source 07ABS website copyright and Creative Commons terms, opens in a new tabCC BY 4.0 terms, attribution requirements and excluded logos, branding and third-party material.
- Source 08Invest SA, Why South Australia, opens in a new tabSouth Australian Government context for Adelaide's industry precincts, operating environment and priority sectors. This separately licensed context is not included in the open data downloads.